Want To Create An Online Course? Who Is On The Other Side Of That Screen?

Imagine for a second that you’ve had a marvellous idea to create an online course to help people get better at managing their time. You decide to call it “Time Management 101” and set about creating your course so that you can get it out there as soon as you can.

But for some reason, when it comes to launching your course, the sales don’t seem to be coming in. You’re surprised because you would have thought that lots of people would be keen on learning about this topic. Surely EVERYONE wants to learn how to manage their time and get more done?

The key word here is EVERYONE.

Creating a generic “101” course for “everyone” is a mistake

Why is this? There are three main reasons:

There are too many courses already about the general subject of time management

If you’re marketing to everyone, you’re marketing to no-one

Your course content will be too generic and not focused enough on specific situations to be appealing enough

A crystal clear understanding of who is on the other side of that screen is vital to the success of your course. The topic of time management does have universal appeal but your course needs to be created for and marketed to a specific group of people.

Let’s imagine that you’re a business coach who has worked with small business owners and helped them become more productive by teaching them how to manage their time better. Or you may be a working parent who has devised a time management system to juggle a million things at once.

In either of these scenarios, you’re in an ideal situation to make an online course specifically for a very focused target market i.e. small business owners or working parents.

You won’t be “competing” against all the other online programs about time management in general. Your course will stand out for the people that you want to teach.

Yes, this means that fewer people will be attracted to your online course because you are targeting a “niche” within the general population but as long as that group of people is large enough, you will still be successful.

Being specific makes marketing easier

You’ll find it much easier to market your course because you will have a clear picture in your mind as to your ideal student – their frustrations and the unique challenges that they face. You’ll be able to address their problems in your marketing, and your target market will identify with you because you have been in their shoes. You’re one of them!

Your course content will be amazingly helpful and useful for them, because it is so tailored to their specific circumstances. The day to day time management challenges faced by small business owners are different to those faced by working parents.

Having a sound understanding of your target market is not just about the usual demographics of profession, age, gender, location, income and so forth. It’s about having clarity around what makes them tick, what drives them, what their goals are, what their innermost thoughts, desires and feelings are.

When you have a crystal clear insight into who is on the other side of the screen before creating your online course, you’re going to greatly increase your chances of success!